As the Civil War ended, people in the United States had sharply different views about how to rebuild the Southern states and bring them back into the Union. This period came to be called Reconstruction. For President Andrew Johnson, a Southerner from Tennessee, Reconstruction had two major aims. First, Southern states had to create new governments that were loyal to the Union and that respected federal authority. Second, slavery had to be abolished once and for all.
These aims left many issues to be resolved. For example, who would control the new state governments in the South—former Confederates? Would freed people have the same rights as other citizens? And what would the relationship be between freed people and former enslavers?
Many Republicans in Congress believed that strong measures would be needed to settle these issues. To them, Reconstruction meant nothing less than a complete remaking of the South based on equal rights and a free-labor economy. The stage was set for a battle over the control—and even the meaning—of Reconstruction.
President Johnson's Reconstruction Plan In May 1865, President Johnson announced his Reconstruction plan. A former Confederate state could rejoin the Union once it had written a new state constitution, elected a new state government, repealed its act of secession, and canceled its war debts. There was a final requirement as well. Every Southern state had to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the United States.
By the fall of 1865, every Southern state had met the president's requirements. The Thirteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution, and presidential Reconstruction had begun.
The Freedmen's Bureau Freed people in the South immediately worked to secure what had been denied to them under enslavement: education, land, financial stability, and political participation. They had none of these things after emancipation. Frederick Douglass wrote,
He had neither money, property, nor friends. He was free from the old plantation, but he had nothing but the dusty road under his feet ... He was turned loose, naked, hungry, and destitute [penniless] to the open sky.
To assist freed people, Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau in March 1865. Over the next four years, the bureau provided food and medical care to both black and white people in the South, helped freed people arrange for wages and good working conditions, and distributed some land in 40-acre plots to "loyal refugees and freedmen."
The Freedmen's Bureau built more than 1,000 schools for African Americans between 1865 and 1872.
Some white people, however, attacked the bureau as an example of Northern interference in the South. Ultimately, the hope of many freed people for "40 acres and a mule" died when Congress refused to take land away from white Southerners.
The most lasting benefit of the Freedmen's Bureau was in education. Thousands of freed people, both young and old, flocked to free schools built by the bureau. Long after the bureau was gone, institutions such as Howard University in Washington, D.C., continued to provide educational opportunities for African Americans.
Black Codes As new state governments took power in the South, many Republicans in Congress were alarmed to see that they were headed by the same people who had led the South before the war—wealthy former enslavers. Once in office, these leaders began passing laws known as black codes. These laws created a system of control over African Americans that resembled slavery.
The black codes served three purposes. The first was to limit the rights of freed people. Black people had gained the rights to marry, to own property, to work for wages, and to sue in court, but they did not have other rights of citizenship. For example, they could not vote or serve on juries in the South.
The second purpose of the black codes was to help landowners find new workers. The codes required freed people to work, and those without jobs could be arrested and hired out to planters. The codes also limited freed people to farming or jobs requiring few skills. These laws banned them from entering most trades or starting businesses.
The third purpose of the black codes was to keep freed people at the bottom of the social order in the South. Most codes called for the segregation of black people and white people in public places.
